The death of a 15-year-old schoolboy is not “any less tragic or pointless” if the pupil who stabbed him is cleared of murder, a jury has been told.
Harvey Willgoose died after he was attacked during his lunch break at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield on 3 February.
A fellow student, who is also 15, is on trial at Sheffield Crown Court after admitting manslaughter but denying murder.
His barrister, Gul Nawaz Hussain KC, told jurors on Friday that if they cleared his client of murder, “it doesn’t mean Harvey’s death is any less tragic or pointless”.
Mr Hussain said: “A loved son has lost his life, a family have been deprived of him. A family mourns him.
“Another boy of a similar age had admitted his fault and, whatever happens, will pay the price for it.
“The defendant has accepted responsibility for what he has done. He needs to pay a price, but that price must be a just one.”
He told the jury that a not guilty verdict to murder would be the just decision in this case, according to the evidence.
The barrister told the court the defendant had a “horrific home life” and suffered a “background of bullying”.
He said “all that was what came together” when he encountered Harvey and this was the “final straw”.
Mr Hussain added that his client had reason to fear Harvey.
But he told the jury he wanted to make it “very, very, clear” that he was not “maligning Harvey or dishonouring his memory”.
He said: “We are not saying that Harvey was all bad or the defendant was all good. Nothing of the sort.”
He discussed evidence of Harvey’s “association with football hooliganism”, with one school record describing him as “extremely aggressive and threatening” and a social care record saying he “threatened aggression”.
A range of interactions have been described between the defendant and Harvey that morning, and Mr Hussain said: “The defendant wanted to avoid Harvey. He did not want trouble.”
However he described how, in a lesson just before the incident, Harvey had mocked the defendant and been aggressive towards him.
In the CCTV footage of the stabbing, Mr Hussain said it could be seen that Harvey was the “first one to make it physical”.
The barrister said his client thought it was an aggressive approach from Harvey and the fact that he stabbed him so hard, breaking one of his ribs and piercing his heart, was further evidence that he “lost control”.
He added his client was “so scared of being hurt, so frightened, so devoid of calm, that that boy had never ever felt this way in his life before”.
The barrister also pointed to how his client was heard to to say “you know I can’t control it” by a teacher seconds after stabbing Harvey.
Mr Hussain told the jury this was the “best piece of evidence that you all have as to why (the defendant) did what he did”.
He concluded his closing speech to the jury on Friday morning and the judge, Mrs Justice Ellenbogen, began summing up the evidence.
